Eigenmann, Rosa Smith, 1858-1947

Biographical notes:

Indiana University student and wife of Professor Carl H. Eigenmann.

Rosa Smith Eigenmann was an internationally known ichthyologist and the first librarian of the San Diego Society of Natural History. She wrote numerous articles of her studies and was considered an authority on fish. She studied at Indiana University under David Starr Jordan and was the first woman to be the president of the I.U. chapter of Sigma Xi, an honorary science society.

Rosa Smith Eigenmann was an internationally known ichthyologist and the first librarian of the San Diego Society of Natural History. She wrote numerous articles of her studies and was considered an authority on fish.

Rosa Smith was born in Monmouth, Illinois in 1858. She was invited to study at Indiana University by David Starr Jordan and was a student from 1880-1882. Through Jordan she met her future husband, Carl H. Eigenmann and the two married in 1887. Before going to Harvard to study the Agassiz fish collections, the couple were curators at the California Academy of Sciences at San Francisco. They also spent much time in South America collecting and studying fresh water fish. Eigenmann did not let her gender prevent her from accomplishing anything she set out to do. Some sources indicate she was the first woman to enter Harvard; the first woman to be the president of the I.U. chapter of Sigma Xi, an honorary science society; and the first woman to determine a new species of fish.

Eigenmann died in 1947 after being ill for several months following a series of operations on her eyes.

From the guide to the Rosa Smith Eigenmann papers, 1880-1927, (Indiana University Office of University Archives and Records Management http://www.libraries.iub.edu/archives)